Sales

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James Buchanan Brady, commonly known as Diamond Jim Brady, was a highly effective salesperson for Manning, Maxwell and Moore, a railroad supply company.[1][2]

Sales are business activities related to selling or the number of goods or services sold in a given targeted time period.

Stages of the sales process

The stages of the sales process shown in the "Sales Loss Pie Chart Breakdown" image below are:

1. Prospecting / Lead Qualification

2. Initial Contact / Rapport building

3. Needs Discovery / Questioning

4. Presentation / Pitch

5. Objection Handling

6. Closing

7. Follow-up / Post-Pitch

These stages represent the typical pipeline in a sales process, with the chart indicating the percentage of lost sales attributed to each stage (totaling 100% of deals that don't close) along with tips to minimize losses at each one.

Below are the stages of the sale process and what percent of sales are lost due to mistakes made in various processes.

Stages of the sale process and what percent of sales are lost due to mistakes made in the various sales processes.


Salesmanship and achievement orientation

See also: Achievement orientation

Harvard Business Review indicates about success in selling: "Eighty-four percent of the top performers tested scored very high in achievement orientation. They are fixated on achieving goals and continuously measure their performance in comparison to their goals."[3]

Salesmanship and emotional intelligence/empathy

See also: Emotional intelligence and Emotional intelligence and achievement

Emotional intelligence (EI) "refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions."[4]

The five components of emotional intelligence are: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.[5]

As far as emotional intelligence and sales performance, according to HR.com: "Hay Group states one study of 44 Fortune 500 companies found that salespeople with high EQ produced twice the revenue of those with average or below average scores. In another study, technical programmers demonstrating the top 10 percent of emotional intelligence competency were developing software three times faster than those with lower competency."[6] See: Emotional intelligence and achievement

In one company, sales reps that received EQ training outsold the control group by an average of 12%, equating to over $55,000 each.[7]

Empathy is one the most important things for a salesperson to have as it enables him to have rapport with his sales prospects/clients and adopt a problem solving approach to his prospects/customers needs/problems/desires.

Articles on sales and empathy:



The five components of emotional intelligence are: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.[8]

Healthy balance between listening and talking during the sales process

Talking too much is often an issue among rookie salespeople. Despite knowing it can turn off prospects and hinder a sale, even seasoned sales representatives still find themselves doing it. Replacing speaking too much with listening is a must for salespeople to improve and maximize their sales efforts.[9]

Importance of marketing and sales prospecting to sales efforts

See also: Sales prospecting

According to the book Contemporary Marketing Wired, "Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, services, organizations, and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives."[10] The four key variables of marketing, which are often referred to as the 4 Ps of marketing, are product, place, promotion, and price.[11]

Marketing and sales have separate primary goals. Marketing is about creating the right product/service offer and raising the awareness of a brand, while sales is about converting a brand's awareness into sales and profits.

Sales prospecting is creating a pipeline of potential customers. Sales professionals who insufficiently sales prospect in terms of the number of people/organizations contacted often severely limit their number of sales. Sales professionals who fail to do an adequate amount of sales prospecting typically aggressively focus on weak prospects with low probabilities of buying their product or service due to not finding enough good prospects (For example, the product/service is not a good fit, lack of interest, lack of a budget, etc.).[12] Effective salespeople qualify sales prospects and contact them on a frequency that is commensurate with their level of interest and their potential fit with their product/service. Contacting a potential future customer too frequently in a given time period risks losing them as a potential future customer due to their annoyance and their increasing perception that the salesperson is pushy and/or desperate.[13]

The article Sales Is Not a Numbers Game — It’s a Prospecting Game indicates:

“ Sales is not a numbers game — it’s a prospecting game.

Everyone is not a prospect

I can tell when a sales professional believes what that other sales instructor says when I ask them a simple question.

When I ask a sales professional to tell me who their ideal customer is, they should be telling me specific descriptions of the types of customers they call on who will most likely buy from them. They may include demographics. Demographics are data about your prospects, and could include company revenue, number of employees, years in business, company location, size of building, or other data.

Their description should also include psychographic data: how people think. You can sell more effectively when you know how your customer thinks and is going to buy. Psychographic data might include whether your customer is a risk-taker or not, whether your customer is health conscious or not, or whether your customer is a status-seeker or not. You can do well selling to risk-averse customers if you're able to communicate and reduce their perception of risk; you'll do worse if you're unable to reduce their perception of risk.[14]

”

Sales training

Brian Tracy is a well-known sales training author/speaker, personal development author and motivational speaker.

See also: Sales training

Sales training is the process of teaching salespeople how to sell more effectively. It helps sales representatives develop the skills they need to sell more efficiently so they can succeed.[15]

Formal sales training can include such topics as: building rapport; sales prospecting; sales presentations; avoiding/overcoming buyer objections; closing sales; getting referrals and customer retention.

Source: What is sales training?

Effectiveness of sales training. Return of investment of sales training for companies

According to HireDNA.com: "A 2020 study by Southern New Hampshire University found that salesperson training can have an ROI of up to 353%. And a separate 2020 study by the Sales Management Association found “teams that invest in sales training and development are 57% more effective than teams that don’t.”[16]

According to the website TrainingIndustry.com:

“ In one study, we included a question that asked participants to rate the quality of their company’s sales skills training program. We found that 10.7 percent of the programs “exceeded expectations,” 42.5 percent “met expectations,” and 43.5 percent “needed improvement.”

What the data clearly showed is that effective sales training has a higher cost attached. Companies with sales skills training programs that exceeded expectations averaged spending $2,870 per salesperson, compared to $2,196 per salesperson for companies with sales skills training programs that met expectations, and $1,815 per salesperson with sales skills training programs that needed improvement.[17]

”

Personality traits of top salespersons

Neuroticism and business to business salespersons

Optimistic salespeople have higher sales and company retention rates

See also: Optimism

The Hoffeld Group indicates:

"University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman conducted some interesting research, which was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, on how optimism and pessimism impacts the performance of sales people.
Seligman gave sales people a psychological assessment that measured their level of optimism. Then he evaluated those sales people’s performance over a two year period. The findings were that those sales people who scored high on optimism sold 37% more than their more pessimistic counterparts. What’s more, the sales people who tested in the top tier in optimism had sales production that was 88% higher than those who had scored high in pessimism.
That’s not all. Seligman’s research also revealed that those sales people who had pessimistic mindsets were also 300% more likely to quit the profession of selling than those who were optimistic."[18]

Salespeople and mental toughness

See also: Mental toughness and Psychological resilience

In the workplace, salespeople have high levels of mental toughness compared to other workers.[19]

Sales and rejection related articles

Videos:

How to overcome a fear of social rejection

See also: Social rejection

Overcoming a fear of social rejection:

Sales producer mentality/identity. Sales and work ethic

See also: Work ethic and Mindset and Identity (psychology) and Discipline and Attitude and Emotional stability and Emotional intelligence and Self-regulation and Skill and Motivation and Productivity and Self-motivation and Self-confidence and Problem solving

A strong sales producer mentality is built around ownership, psychological resilience, and value creation. It’s the identity of someone who doesn’t see themselves as an order-taker, but as a problem-solver whose job is to move outcomes forward. Producers focus on what they can control: activity level, skill development, follow-up, and emotional discipline. Rejection isn’t personal; it’s data. Obstacles aren’t signals to stop; they’re signals to adjust. This mindset also includes long-term thinking — planting seeds, nurturing relationships, and understanding that today’s effort often pays on a delay. A true producer measures their day by inputs (calls made, conversations started, proposals sent, skills practiced) because consistent inputs are what eventually make results predictable.

The Compounding loop: skills → conversations → self-confidence → activity → sales results

Sales success is inseparable from work ethic, but not just in the “grind harder” sense. Effective work ethic in sales means sustained, focused effort on the highest-leverage actions, even when motivation fluctuates. It’s doing the follow-ups others avoid, preparing before conversations, tracking numbers honestly, and improving weak spots instead of hiding from them. Discipline beats mood. Over time, this creates a compounding effect: better skills lead to better conversations, which lead to higher self-confidence, which fuels more activity. Work ethic, in this context, is less about hours and more about standards — the personal non-negotiables that ensure performance doesn’t depend on how you feel that day.

Core principles:

  • Ownership over outcomes
  • Input‑driven execution
  • Emotional stability
  • Long‑term orientation
  • Skill compounding over time and not plateauing
  • Identity‑based discipline

Mindset / Discipline Are Frequently Linked to Failure:

While not precise percentages, research and industry analysis consistently identify psychological and behavioral factors as major predictors of success or failure — including traits that are part of the producer identity and work ethic you describe:

1. Psychological and belief factors

One sales performance analysis suggested that around 65% of salespeople are poor to average performers and that psychological factors (beliefs, attitude, behavior) explain a large portion of underperformance. This aligns with the idea that identity + discipline — not just technical skill — shapes whether someone thrives in sales (See: Common Reasons Salespeople Underperform).

2. Lack of commitment or motivation

In one detailed assessment of sales traits (“Sales DNA”), 37% of salespeople lacked commitment to success, and 60% made excuses for poor performance, both of which tie directly to work ethic and mental models (See: The Wrong Salespeople are Hired 77% of the Time).

3. Weak Sales DNA correlates with failure

Among weaker performers, overwhelming majority lacked the core traits predictive of success — including resilience, persistence, and motivation — which are core to a producer identity (See: The Wrong Salespeople are Hired 77% of the Time).

Articles:

Sales plateau

See also: Sales plateau and Sales training

A sales plateau is a period of time where a salesperson, sales team, company or organization experiences stagnant or declining revenue growth, despite efforts to increase sales volume.

Articles:

Increasing writing and verbal abilities and increasing sales abilities

Harvard Business Review articles on sales

Salespersons

Sales statistics

Income of salespeople and sales managers

Income of salespersons and occupational outlook

According to the Houston Chonicle, "The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, states that 20 percent of your company's sales people will generate 80 percent of your sales revenue."[20]

According to Ziprecruiter.com, as of April 2025, the average salesrep earns $76,681.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics includes cashiers as salespeople which depresses the reported median annual wage reported. Many people do not consider cashiers to be salespeople although some cashiers attempt to upsell (even though they typically receive no bonuses for these upsells).

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“ Overall employment in sales occupations is projected to decline over the 2023–33 decade. However, about 1.8 million openings are projected each year, on average, in these occupations due to the need to replace workers who leave the occupations permanently.

The median annual wage for this group was $36,760 in May 2023, which was lower than the median annual wage for all occupations of $48,060.[21]

”

Occupational outlook for salespeople and incomes for various occupational sectors of salespeople

Sales manager incomes

According to the U.S Labor of Labor Statistics, in the United States in 2022, the average income of sales managers is $130,600 per year with average hourly income of $62.79 per hour. The occupational job outlook is average compared to other occupations.[22]

Sales as a great profession for top performers who increase their skill level

Book

  • The Greatest Job You Never Thought Of: How Anyone Can Find Career Satisfaction and Financial Independence in Sales by Frank Felker. Powerhouse Publishing (January 10, 2005)

Shark Tank investor Barbara Corcoran on Donald Trump as the greatest salesperson she ever met

Books

Books on sales

  • The New Model of Selling: Selling to an Unsellable Generation by Jerry Acuff and Jeremy Miner. Morgan James Publishing (March 14, 2023).
  • Sales Encyclopedia by John J. Chapin, Robert J. Chapin, Kyle Andrews, Bill Hall, Keith Mooradia and Jean Marie Reheuser. ASIN: B010CLRVJO, 2009
  • Smart Calling: Eliminate the Fear, Failure, and Rejection from Cold Calling by Art Sobczak. John Wiley & Sons Inc; 1st edition (March 10, 2010)

Books on sales and marketing

  • Right on the Money: New Principles for Bold Growth by Colleen Francis. Morgan James Publishing (March 29, 2022)

Books on recruiting top sales talent

  • How to Hire Top Sales Talent: A Step-By-Step Guide by Bryan Payne. Bryan Payne (January 28, 2025)
  • Six Figure Sales Recruiter by Ryan Hohman. Independently published (March 7, 2019)
  • The Right Person: The Secret To Recruiting Top Sales Talent by Russel Gregware. ASIN: ‎B0BZFGDRPP. Publisher: ‎Independently published (March 27, 2023)

Related career of copywriting

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ Diamond Jim By Steven Mark Adelson, Irish America, August / September 2010
  2. ↑ M. M. & M., Time magazine. January 24, 1938
  3. ↑ Seven Personality Traits of Top Salespeople, Harvard Business Review, 2011
  4. ↑ Emotional intelligence
  5. ↑ Domains of Emotional Intelligence, MBA Knowledge Base
  6. ↑ The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: Why It Matters More than Personality., HR.com
  7. ↑ WHY EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN SALES IS THE NEXT HIGH-PERFORMANCE DIFFERENTIATOR
  8. ↑ Domains of Emotional Intelligence, MBA Knowledge Base
  9. ↑ Talking Too Much: Why You Do It & How to Stop
  10. ↑ http://iws.ohiolink.edu/moti/homedefinition.html
  11. ↑ http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/dstools/paradigm/4pmark.html
  12. ↑ It’s Time to Refocus Your Prospecting, Flannery Sales Systems website
  13. ↑ 10 TIPS FOR FOLLOWING UP WITH CLIENTS (WITHOUT BEING ANNOYING)
  14. ↑ Sales Is Not a Numbers Game — It’s a Prospecting Game, AllBusiness.com
  15. ↑
  16. ↑ Investing in Salesperson Training Can Have Up to 353% ROI: Why it Pays to Develop Your Talent, HireDNA.com
  17. ↑ Sales Training: Is It Worth It?, Training Industry website
  18. ↑ How Your Thoughts Impact Your Sales, Hoffeld Group
  19. ↑ Mental Toughness and the effectiveness of Sales People
  20. ↑ The 80/20 Rule in Sales Team Performance, Houston Chronicle
  21. ↑ Sales Occupations, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
  22. ↑ Sales Manager, U.S Labor of Labor Statistics]
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